June 11, 2026
I’ve always said that if you stay close to the water, you never truly lose your bearings. There is something ancient and grounding about looking out at a horizon line where the sea meets the sky, knowing that no matter how deep you wander into the world, the water is always there to guide you back home. But lately, I’ve decided to trade the roll of the deck for the hum of the blacktop, an idea inspired by looking back through my old travel journals in "book_1.doc". The sailing lanes have been incredibly crowded this year, and while I love a good crew and a strong wind, the sheer logistics of navigating into busy ports can sometimes take the relaxation right out of a vacation. By switching to land travel, I’m entirely free from the whims of the tides and the wind. I can just pull over whenever a particular view catches my eye or whenever a local dive looks friendly enough to offer a cold drink and a warm conversation.
Today is the opening match of the 2026 World Cup, featuring Mexico squaring off against South Africa, and even out here where the highway snakes closely along the coast, you can feel the world shifting its weight. The global football carnival has officially begun, and the excitement is absolutely contagious. I packed my small backpack with the bare essentials—an iPad, a few loose-fitting shirts, a pair of quick-drying jungle shorts, and a spare bag of ginger snaps. Though this time around, the ginger snaps aren't for warding off sea sickness on a choppy ocean channel; they are strictly to settle the stomach while maneuvering the tight, winding coastal roads that grip the edges of the peninsula.
Kat "Sweet Pea"—my best friend and wife, who are one and the same person—is riding shotgun in our 1968 MGB. My old sports car has spent its fair share of time in small shops getting steering parts fixed up over the years, but today it is running like a top, its exhaust humming a rhythmic song that blends perfectly with the crashing surf. I finally convinced Sweet Pea to take a much-deserved break from teaching this year. She has spent so many years dedicated to her students back in the states, but right now, she’s running through an online master's program in economics entirely on island time. As we cruise along the coastal highways, her nose is buried deeply in a textbook, her hair whipping wildly in the warm ocean breeze as she cross-references economic models with the sheer joy of doing absolutely nothing.
We parked the MG right on the edge of the sand on the Yucatán Peninsula. The Pacific and Atlantic Oceans might claim completely different sides of this beautiful country, but right here where our tires meet the beach, it’s just one massive, magnificent expanse of turquoise water reflecting a brilliant azure sky. The water is so impossibly clear that you can see schools of silver fish darting through the shallows from your car seat. The locals have hooked up a small generator to a weathered wooden table right at the surf's edge, getting a portable television ready for the kickoff. They are running extension cords across the sugary sand, laughing and shouting in Spanish as they test the signal.
I’ve got a cold Sol beer in my hand—very fitting for an afternoon watching old Sol fight to hang on to the day—and we are getting settled into some canvas chairs to watch the host nation make history. The match itself didn't disappoint the home crowd; Mexico put on a clinic, securing a clean 2-0 victory over South Africa to set the pace for the tournament. The goals sent the beachside crowd into absolute hysteria, with people dancing into the surf and raising glasses to the sky. There is something incredibly simple and beautiful about taking in the opening of a global tournament from the very shores of a country bound by the vast ocean. The afternoon sun is blazing down, warming my skin, but the steady sea breeze keeps the air perfectly comfortable. As the stadium crowds roar thousands of miles away, I take a slow sip of my beer, look over at Sweet Pea, and realize that our land journey couldn't have started in a better version of paradise.
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